The first video in the 2026 Book of Mormon Geography series explains how the text unambiguously requires the river Sidon to flow from south to north. See the blog article "Book of Mormon Geography #01 River Sidon Flowed North."
The second video in this series was published on September 10, 2026.
In it, Brad Omer and I walk through 6 essential tools that will allow us to accurately locate Book of Mormon geography in the real world. This is an executive summary of the points we make in the video.
Introduction to Brad Omer of Lehi, Utah. He is a life-long careful student of the Nephite text who has written extensively on the war chapters. His video on the war chapters is on the Discover the Book of Mormon YouTube Channel.
Brad Omer and Kirk Magleby will produce a series of videos locating Book of Mormon places in the real world. We expect this series to be groundbreaking in its rigor and methodological sophistication. We will need exceptional tools in our backpack as we embark on this journey of discovery.
Tool 1 of 6 is the realization that Book of Mormon geography is not essential. So, why do we care?
- Exploring Book of Mormon spatial correlations is very enjoyable.
- It helps us understand the text at a much more profound level. As an example, I cited this blog article "Captain Moroni in Space and Time."
Tool 3 of 6 is the realization that the Book of Mormon describes real people who lived in a real time in a real place. It is authentic ancient history. Our quest can eventually be successful. We patiently wait for revelatory finality, but in the meantime we will use the best means at our disposal. The witness of the spirit is decisive. As an example, I cite my personal conversion story. Rational processes bring pleasure, satisfaction, and affirmation that help ground testimony.
Tool 4 of 6 is the Church's Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon Geography. It is foundational because it lets us know:
- The text has impressive internal consistency.
- The only known location is the entire Western Hemisphere, the Americas, and that ambiguity extends even to the Hill Cumorah. Its location has not been revealed.
- Joseph Smith at various times seemed to support North American and Central American locations for Book of Mormon cities and events. (We describe the sensation Stephens and Catherwood's 1841 Incidents of Travel in Central America and Yucatan caused in Nauvoo.)
- We should avoid speculation. The only way to do this is to be grounded in the text - to let the text speak for itself.
- We must not imply prophetic or Church support for our theories. In fact, we should not even discuss the subject of Book of Mormon geography in official Church settings.
Tool 5 of 6 is the text itself. The Book of Mormon is our primary source for information about its geography because it was written by inspired eye-witnesses. The Yale 2009 is our preferred text. Different interpretations of the same passage in the text are inevitable. We need assumptions, an apparatus for interpreting the text consistently. Royal Skousen coined the term "systematic phraseology" which means we can find patterns in Nephite language usage.
There are at least 500 passages in the text with geographic implications. Some come from chronology - how long it took to travel from place A to place B. Some come from politics - The Nephite nation was a very different entity in Alma 22 that it was one generation later in Alma 50. Things changed forever with the debacle in Helaman 4.
We shared a jigsaw puzzle analogy. We have about 500 pieces of a 1,000 piece puzzle. There is no reference picture on the box. There are enough pieces that with great effort we can construct a viable internal map first, then fit it to the real world.
We enjoy advantages that previous generations of Book of Mormon geography students did not have such as geographic information systems (Google Earth), the Yale 2009 text, and fast computerized word and phrase searches.
Tool 6 of 6 is credible science. Many scientific results are largely incontrovertible meaning the vast majority of scientists accept them. Relevant examples are aerial photography, satellite remote sensing, topographic terrain mapping, shoreline configurations, and river courses. Dating is quite accurate because we can triangulate between speliology, dendrochronology, stratigraphy, thermoluminescence, carbon 14 radiometry, and written history. Yes, we do have some written history in the Americas that dates to Book of Mormon times. LIDAR is another source of generally accepted data.
Spoiler alert. There is at least a 98% probability that the core Book of Mormon area was in Mesoamerica. Over time, Jaredite, Mulekite, and Lehite influence could have spread far beyond the core area.
We are not peddling anything. Our motive is altruistic. We want to help fulfill President Ezra Taft Benson's 1988 plea to flood the earth with the Book of Mormon, and that is much more likely to happen if a plausible geography becomes generally accepted.
We alluded to the purpose behind the Discover the Book of Mormon initiative within Ancient America Foundation.
